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Tech Xplore / Robot hand approaches human-like dexterity with new visual-tactile training

Human hands are a wonder of nature and unmatched in the animal kingdom. They can twist caps, flick switches, handle tiny objects with ease, and perform thousands of tasks every day. Robot hands struggle to keep up. They typically ...

Feb 17, 2026 in Robotics
Phys.org / Plant-based material offers sustainable method of recovering rare earth element

Despite rare earth elements' importance in manufacturing cell phones, magnets and a host of other consumer and commercial electronics, the lack of a sustainable, environmentally friendly approach to obtaining these metals ...

Feb 18, 2026 in Chemistry
Phys.org / Archaeologists identify elders in Iron Age Israel through household artifacts

A new study from Bar-Ilan University is shedding light on a long-overlooked social group in archaeology: the elderly. While research on women and children has flourished in recent decades, older adults have remained largely ...

Feb 18, 2026 in Other Sciences
Phys.org / Marriage or moving in? Study explains what lifts happiness after 50

Who says that butterflies in the stomach are only for the young? A new study by psychologist Iris Wahring from the University of Vienna and her international team shows that when people over 50 enter into a new relationship ...

Feb 18, 2026 in Other Sciences
Phys.org / Turtles' brains shed light on evolutionary developments dating back hundreds of millions of years

A new study from the School of Neurobiology, Biochemistry, and Biophysics reveals a surprising insight into the operation of the ancestral brain: the visual cortex of turtles is capable of detecting unexpected visual stimuli ...

Feb 18, 2026 in Biology
Medical Xpress / The cells that never sleep: How slumber lets neurons clean up and stay healthy

When HHMI Investigator Amita Sehgal started studying sleep 25 years ago, the topic elicited a yawn from most biologists. "In the year 2000, if I had suggested to my department that we hire people working on sleep, they would ...

Feb 18, 2026 in Sleep disorders
Phys.org / New study identifies sequence of critical thresholds for Antarctic ice basins

The Antarctic ice sheet does not behave as one single tipping element, but as a set of interacting basins with different critical thresholds. This is the finding of a new study by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact ...

Feb 18, 2026 in Earth
Phys.org / New 'Mars GPS' lets Perseverance pinpoint its location within 25 centimeters

Imagine you're all alone, driving along in a rocky, unforgiving desert with no roads, no map, no GPS, and no more than one phone call a day for someone to inform you exactly where you are. That's what NASA's Perseverance ...

Feb 18, 2026 in Astronomy & Space
Phys.org / Mantle plume vs. plate tectonics: Basalt cores reshape the North Atlantic breakup debate

About 56 million years ago, Europe and North America began pulling apart to form what became the ever-expanding North Atlantic Ocean. Vast amounts of molten rock from Earth's mantle reached the ocean floor as the crust stretched ...

Feb 18, 2026 in Earth
Phys.org / Map suggests up to 30% of western bird hotspots face severe wildfire risk

Up to 30% of bird diversity hotspots, places where large numbers of different bird species occur, in the western United States face threats from high-severity wildfires in the future that could eliminate critical forest habitats, ...

Feb 18, 2026 in Biology
Medical Xpress / COVID-19 vaccination during pregnancy may help prevent preeclampsia

A new multinational study from the INTERCOVID Consortium, including Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago, has found that COVID-19 vaccination during pregnancy, particularly when combined with a booster dose, ...

Feb 18, 2026 in Cardiology
Phys.org / Simplifying quantum simulations—symmetry can cut computational effort by several orders of magnitude

Quantum computer research is advancing at a rapid pace. Today's devices, however, still have significant limitations: For example, the length of a quantum computation is severely limited—that is, the number of possible ...

Feb 18, 2026 in Physics